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WATCHMEN1Published monthly andcopyright666All 1986 DC ComicsFifth Ave,NewYork,Inc.NY 10103Rights Reserved.Thestories, charactersmentionedin thisand incidentspublicationare entirely fictional.Allcharacters featuredpublicationand thein thisdistinctivelikenesses thereof aretrademarks of DC ComicsPrintedinDC ComicsInc.Canada.Inc.A Warner Communications Company.
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UNDER THE HOODThe lady who works in the grocery store at the comerof my block is called Denise,she’s one of America’s great unpublished novelists. Over the years she’s written forty-two romantic novels, none of which have ever reached the bookstores. I,however, have been fortunate enough to hear the plots of the last twenty-seven ofthese recounted in installments by the authoress herself every time I drop by thestore for ajar of coffee or can of beans, and my respect for Denise’s literary prowess knows nobounds. So, naturally enough, when I found myself faced with the daunting task of actuallystarting the book you now hold in your hands, it was Denise I turned to for advice.“Listen,” I said. “I don’t know from writing a book. I have all this stuff in my head that Iwant to get down, but what do I write about first? Where do I begin?”Without looking up from the boxes of detergent to which she was fixing price tags, Denisegraciously delivered up a pearl of her accumulated wisdom in a voice of bored but benignandcondescension.“Start off with the saddest thingyourside.After that, believe me,ThankbetweenTheallit’syou, Denise. This bookthe other peopleIyou can think of and get the audience’s sympathies ona walk.”isdedicated to you, becauseshould be dedicatingitIdon’tknow howtochooseto.can think of is “The Ride of the Valkyries.” Every time I hear it I getdepressed and start wondering about the lot of humanity and the unfairness of life and allthose other things that you think about at three in the morning when your digestion won’t letyousaddest thingsleep.Now,Irealize thatInobodyelseon the planet hastobrush away a tear when theythat’s because they don’t know about Moe Vernon.When my father upped and left my Granddad’s farm in Montana to bring his family toNew York, Moe Vernon was the man he worked for. Vernon’s Auto Repairs was just off Seventhhear that particular stirring refrain, butAvenue, and although it was only 1928 when Dad started working there, there was just aboutenough trade for his wages to keep me and Mom and my sister Liantha in food and clothing.Dad was always really keen and enthusiastic about his work, and I used to think it was justbecause he had a thing about cars. Looking back, I can see it was more than that. It must havemeant so much to him, just to have a job and be able to support his family. He’d had a lot ofarguments with his father about coming east rather than taking over the farm, like the oldman had planned for him, and most of the rows had ended with my grandfather predictingpoverty and moral ruination for my dad and mom if they so much as set foot in New York. Tobe living thelifethat’ssomethinghad chosen and keeping his family above the poverty line inwarnings must have meant more to my dad than anything in the world, butthat he himselfspite of his father’sIonly understand now, with hindsight. Back then,Ijust thoughthe was crazyfor crankshafts.was twelve years old when we left Montana, so during those next few years inthe big city I was just the age to appreciate the occasional trips to the auto shop with my dad,which is where I first set eyes on Moe Vernon, his employer.Moe Vernon was a man around fifty-five or so, and he had one of those old New Yorkfaces that you don’t see anymore. It’s funny, but certain faces seem to go in and out of style. Youlook at old photographs and everybody has a certain look to them, almost as if they’re related.Look at pictures from ten years later and you can see that there’s a new kind of face starting topredominate, and that the old faces are fading away and vanishing, never to be seen again.Moe Vernon’s face was like that: three chins, a wiseacre cynical curl to his lower lip, a certainhollowness around the eyes, hair retreating back across his head, attempting a rendezvousAnyway,with the labelIonhis shirt collar.
HOLLIS MASON2Vernon’s Auto Repairc.1928.(left to right)My father; myself, age12;Moe Vernon;Fred Motz.go into the shop with my dad and Moe would be sitting there in his office, which had glasssides so he could watch the men working. Sometimes, if my father wanted to check something outwith Moe before going ahead with his work, hed send me over to the office to do it for him, whichmeant that I got to see the insides of Moe’s inner sanctum. Or rather, I got to hear them.You see, Moe was an opera buff. He had one of the new gramophones over in the cornerof his office and all day he used to play scratchy old seventy-eight recordings of his favoritesjust as loud as he could manage. By today’s standard, “as loud as he could manage” didn'tamount to a whole lot of noise, but it sounded pretty cacophonous back in 1930, when thingswere generally quieter.The other thing that was peculiar about Moe was his sense of humor, as represented byall the stuff he used to keep in the top right side drawer of his desk.In that drawer, amongst a mess of rubber bands and paper clips and receipts and stuff,Moe had one of the largest collections of tasteless novelty items that I had seen up until thatpoint or have seen at any time since. They were all risque little toys and gadgets that Moe hadpicked up from gag shops or on visits to Coney Island, but it was the sheer range of them thatwas overwhelming: every cheap blue gimmick that you can remember your dad bringing homewhen he’d been out drinking with the boys and embarrassing your mom with; every ballpointpen with a girl on the side whose swimsuit vanished when you turned it upside down; everysalt and pepper crewet set shaped like a woman’s breasts; every plastic dog mess. Moe had theworks. Every time anybody went into his office he’d try to startle them by displaying his latestplaything. Actually, it used to shock my dad more than it did me. I don’t think he liked the ideaof his son being exposed to that kind of stuff, probably because of all the moral warnings mygrandfather had impressed upon him. For my part, I wasn’t offended and I even found it kindof funny. Not the things themselveseven by then I was too old to get much amusement outI’d.
UNDER THE HOODof stuff like that. Whathave a desk drawerfullI3found funny was that for no apparent reason, a grownmanshouldof such ludicrous devices.little after my seventeenth birthday,I was over at Vernon’s Autohim poke around in the oily innards of a busted-up Ford. Moe wasin his office, and although we didn’t find out till later, he was sitting wearing an artificial foamrubber set of realistically painted lady’s bosoms, with which he hoped to get a few laughs fromthe guy who brought him the morning mail through from the front office when it arrived.Anyway, one dayin 1933, aRepairs with Dad, helpingWhile he waited, he waslistening toWagner.The mail arrived in due course, and the guy handing it over managed to raise a dutifulchuckle at Moe’s generous cleavage before leaving him to open and peruse the morning’smissives. Amongst these (again, as we found out later) there was a letter from Moe’s wifeBeatrice, informing him that for the past two years she’d been sleeping with Fred Motz, theand most trusted mechanic employed at Vernon’s Auto Repairs, who, unusually, hadn’tshown up for work on that particular morning. This, according to the concluding paragraphsof the letter, was because Beatrice had taken all the money out of the joint account she sharedwith her husband and had departed with Fred for Tijuana.The first anyone in the workshop knew about this was when the door of Moe’s officeslammed open and the startlingly loud and crackling rendition of “Ride of the Valkyries”blasted out from within. Framed in the doorway with tears in his eyes and the crumpled letterseniorhand, Moe stood dramatically with all eyes turned towards him. He was still wearing theof artificial breasts. Almost inaudible above the rising strains of Wagner swelling behindmuch hurt and outrage and offended dignity fighting for possession ofin hissethim, he spoke, with sohis voice that theendresultwas almosttoneless.“Fred Motz has had carnal knowledge ofHe stoodthroatAnd everybody started laughing.don’t know what it was. We could see heIwas crying, buttonelesswayitwas just somethinghe'd saidit,alltriumphant music soaringNone of us couldin thestanding there wear-ing a pair of false breasts withing,that crashallaroundit, laughing at himwere both doubled upand the other guys slaving over the nearbycars were wiping tears from their eyes andsmearing their faces with oil in the process.Moe just looked at us all for a minute and thenhim.my wifeBeatrice for the past two years.”down over his multiplefoam rubber of his bosom, making tiny sounds in his chest andthat were trampled under the hooves of the Valkyries and lost forever.there in the wake of his announcement, the tears rollingchins to soak into the pinklike that.My dad andwent backhelpIinto his officeand closed the door.A moment or two later the Wagner stoppedwith an ugly scraping noise asMoesnatchedthe needle from the groove of the gramo-phone record, and after that there was silence.About half an hour passed before someone went in to apologize on behalf of everybody and to see if Moe was all right. Moeaccepted the apology and said that he wasfine. Apparently he was sitting there at hisdesk, breasts now discarded, getting on withnormal routine paperwork as if nothing hadhappened.
HOLLIS MASON4Thatnight,he sent everybody homeearly.Then, running a tube from the exhaust of oneof the shop’s more operational vehicles in through the car’s window, he started up the engineand drifted off into a final, bitter sleep amongst the carbon monoxide fumes. His brother tookover the business and even eventually reemployed Fred Motz as chief mechanic.And that’s why “The Ride of the Valkyries” is the saddest thing I can think of, even thoughsomebody else’s tragedy rather than my own. I was there and I laughed along with all theand I guess that makes it part of my story too.Now, if Denise’s theory is correct, I should have your full sympathy and the rest will be awalk. So maybe it’s safe to tell you about all the stuff you probably bought this book to readabout. Maybe it’s safe to tell you why I'm crazier than Moe Vernon ever was. I didn’t have adrawer full of erotic novelties, but I guess I had my own individual quirks. And although I’venever worn a set of false bosoms in my life, I’ve stood there dressed in something just as strange,it’srestwith tears inmy eyes whilepeople died laughing.I was twenty-three years old and had taken a job on the New York City policenever really examined until now just why I should have chosen that particularI guess it came as a result of a number of things. Foremost amongst these wa
WATCHMEN1 Publishedmonthlyand copyright 1986DCComicsInc. 666FifthAve,NewYork,NY10103 AllRightsReserved. Thestories,charactersandincidents mentionedinthispublication areentirelyfictional. Allcharactersfeaturedinthis publicationandthedistinctive likenessesthereofare trademarksofDCComicsInc. PrintedinCanada. DCComicsInc. AWarnerCommunicationsCompany. RORSCHACH’S'JOURNAL.
